{"id":2689,"date":"2026-05-06T16:42:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T16:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2689"},"modified":"2026-05-06T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T16:42:27","slug":"goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/goodbye\/2689\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Phil Moody crouched beside his daughter as she sat cross-legged on the wet sand, and tucked his coat around his knees. Jeez<\/em>, he thought, the weather forecast wasn\u2019t wrong about the change.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you doing, love?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arabella had her palms pressed flat to the sand, head tilted, as though listening for something underneath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSaying goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoodbye to what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

He glanced along the empty stretch of Swansea beach and smiled to himself. Six years old and a head full of invisible friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich friends?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the little ones. The crabs. The sand fleas. The birds and the insects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A gust came off the bay and threw a fistful of sand into his face. He fumbled in his pocket for their muslin scarves, wrapped Arabella\u2019s across her mouth, and slid her goggles down before donning his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll still be here tomorrow, sweetheart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. They\u2019re leaving. Nothing will be here tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He laughed, a little breathless, and stroked her earnest little face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wind began to howl. He scooped her up, her thin legs banging against his hip, and made for the promenade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind them the sea had turned hard grey, and sand whipped in low, swirling flurries across the beach. Out in the bay, sailors fought their sails, their boats shying like nervous colts. He frowned and assured himself it was only weather, just a bad front, nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shouldered the front door open as a slap of rain caught his back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod, what a day,\u201d Cerys said, drying her hands on a tea towel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt will get worse,\u201d Arabella said, pulling off her goggles. \u201cWe should go now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s alright, poppet.\u201d He kissed her damp hair. \u201cWe\u2019re inside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A plastic bucket clattered against the window. Phil turned. The promenade was being scoured now, white water leaping the railings, and flags ripping loose. A young couple staggered along the pavement, clinging to each other, coats flapping like the pages of an abandoned book. The girl\u2019s feet left the ground, but the boy caught her. He folded himself around her in the lee of a low wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phil went to the door. He shouted, but the wind howled him down. He saw the gust coming; bins, bikes, and barriers lifting in its wake. He watched, mouth agape, as the pair of them lifted; carried out over the railings and down, down into the churning grey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDaddy,\u201d Arabella said, her voice a whisper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He just stood there, shaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDaddy. We really should go now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He nodded at Cerys. Her face still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The back door. The car. He buckled Arabella into her seat. The engine coughed and died. He turned it once more, and it caught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reversing into the lane, the car bucked. Rain sheeted across the windscreen. The wipers were useless. He drove anyway, blind, gripping the wheel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too late,\u201d Arabella said, her voice quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wing mirror he saw the wall of water rise, taller than the houses, taller than anything, and then\u2026 everything was gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Moody crouched beside his daughter as she sat cross-legged on the wet sand, and tucked his coat around his knees. Jeez, he thought, the weather forecast wasn\u2019t wrong about the change. \u201cWhat are you doing, love?\u201d Arabella had her palms pressed flat to the sand, head tilted, as though listening for something underneath. \u201cSaying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211","service":"facebook","timestamp":1778085800,"status":"success"},{"account":"twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305","service":"twitter","timestamp":1778085801,"status":"error"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1792,1866],"tags":[1254,1868,1869],"class_list":["post-2689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1792","category-climate","tag-beach","tag-climate-change","tag-swansea"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbrNJE-goodbye","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2690,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689\/revisions\/2690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}